January 4, 2000

If Things Are Good,
Why Are They So Bad?

Millennial
reflections have ended. But the orgy of self-congratulation will
go on. American global supremacy is here to stay, our pundits and
editorial writers cry as they hi-five one another, because it is
so clearly in the interests of mankind that it should do so. According
to the New York Times, "The idealistic desire to make
the world over is the deepest mystery of the American character
and our signature national trait." "The desire to make
the world over" is neither mysterious nor "the signature
national trait" of anybody. The world has never been short
of zealots who want "to make it over." "It was the
American economy," the Times continues, "and the
worldwide influence of the popular culture made possible by that
economy" that led to the "triumph of a century of expanding
freedom." Wisely, the Times chose not to explain how
exactly trash movies, inane soap operas, and wall-to-wall obscenities
led to the "triumph of a century of expanding freedom."
It did not matter. What matters is the predictable conclusion: "We
have the humane vision and technological means to lift the world
family to new levels of liberty, affluence, health and happiness."
What the "world family" might think about this is neither
here nor there.

As
usual, Francis
Fukuyama offered the most interesting defense of American
global supremacy. Writing in the Wall Street Journal,
he wondered what would have happened had Germany won World
War I. He accepts that there would have been no Bolshevik
Revolution, no Hitler, no World War II, no Holocaust, no collapse
of European empires, and, of course, no American global supremacy.
Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? No, Fukuyama rushes to tell
us, for in such a world there would have been no democracy,
no equality, no national self-determination, no welfare state,
no "technological innovations, from aircraft and radar
to computers, integrated circuits and the Internet."
True to Hegelian
obsessions, he argues that it was the bad things of the last
century that made possible all the good things. "The
Holocaust put paid to concepts like social Darwinism and eugenics in
the US the service of African-Americans and the entry of women
into the industrial work force in World War II laid the groundwork
for advances by both groups in later decades." Fukuyama's
claims are extremely implausible. The
Germans invented the welfare state. German scientists
have always been among the best in the world. Germany in 1914
was at least as democratic as its World War I rivals. Most
important, Stalin, Hitler and Mao seem an awfully high price
to pay to have Gloria
Steinem among us.

As
the saying has it, if things are so good why are they so bad?
Why does the rest of the world fail to grasp that the United
States is motivated by altruism? That it only has the interests
of the "world family" at heart? Last year just as
he was crowing over his destruction of Belgrade, Bill Clinton
promulgated something that has now come to be known as the
Clinton Doctrine. This pledges: "Whether you live in
Africa, Central Europe or any other place, if somebody comes
after innocent civilians and tries to kill them en masse because
of their race, their ethnic background or their religion 
and it is within our power to stop it  we will stop
it." The rest of the world understood only too well what
Clinton was saying. Any minority can now make trouble and
try to provoke government repression. While the authorities
do what they are entitled to do, namely, maintain civil peace
and the integrity of the state, the recalcitrant minority
can cry: "Human rights violations!" And the United
States will be on hand with its cruise missiles and B-2 bombers.

As
everyone knows even though they may pretend not to, powers
do not meddle in the internal affairs of other powers out
of altruism. When the United States supports the irredentist
or independence aspirations of a minority it does so for a
reason. It wants to weaken the state from which the minority
wishes to secede and to strengthen its neighbors. The Clinton
Doctrine  or the doctrine of humanitarian intervention
 is a piece of legerdemain. For the United States picks
and chooses very carefully which minorities it supports and
which it does not. The Kosovo Albanians, the Bosnian Moslems,
the Chechens  yes. The Kurds,
the Basques, the Corsicans,
the Krajina
Serbs  no.

Just
about every state in the world, including the United States,
possesses minorities that wish to secede or, at least, owe
their allegiance elsewhere. National disintegration is every
state's nightmare. The doctrine of humanitarian intervention
is merely today's form of imperialism. The United States champions
"human rights" in order to weaken and destroy states
that it fears as potential rivals. The new entities that emerge
serve American interests very nicely. An independent Chechnya
will accept US investment and financial control through American
creatures like the IMF far
more readily than a powerful Russia. As will East Timor, Aceh,
and every other piece of Indonesia as one by one they all
break away. As will Tibet, Xinjiang, and every other "independent"
province of China as they break away. A Moslem Bosnia that
acts as a center of Islamic terror in Europe serves to weaken
Europe and increase its dependency on the United States. Greater
Albania will take care of NATO's Eastern Mediterranean flank
with fewer complaints than Greece.

Not
surprisingly, the rest of the world has not been prepared
to sit idly by and allow the United States to take over the
store. The Russians well understand that the United States
is in the Caucasus because it wants to rob them of the oil
wealth of the Caspian Sea. They understand that the purpose
of the new, expanded NATO is to push the Russians out of Ukraine
and eventually out of the Black Sea. Earlier this year NATO
bombed the Russians' allies, the Serbs, and there was nothing
they could do about it. They helped to broker a peace agreement.
Yet NATO broke all its pledges and again there was nothing
the Russians could do about it. They had become so weak. Today
as the Russians pulverize Grozny they are taking the first
tentative steps towards trying to reemerge as a major power.

The
Chinese are also extremely concerned about US machinations.
They see Americans offering Taiwan theater missile defense
systems. They see Americans drooling over the Dalai Lama.
They see the leader of the Falun Gong movement living in the
United States. They see their Belgrade Embassy smashed to
pieces. They understand that if they do not act now they will
become satellites of the United States. The Russians and the
Chinese  protagonists during the Cold War  are
today the closest of friends, united in hostility towards
the United States. At a recent Sino-Russian summit, President
Jiang Zemin warned that "hegemony and the politics of
force are on the rise, with new forms of so-called neo-interventionism
being revived." The communiqué announced that
both Russia and China are "opposed to jeopardizing the
sovereignty of independent nations" on the pretext of
human rights. Russia is selling 60 advanced SU-30 MKK fighter
jets to China. In addition, Russia, China and three Central
Asian States  Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan
and Tajikistan
 have pledged to fight security threats to the region
 chiefly ethnic and religious separatism. China is also
strengthening its ties with India  another protagonist
of long standing.

In
1998, Yevgeny
Primakov suggested the creation of a strategic triangle
comprising Russia, China and India. Whatever hesitations India
may have had, have been dispelled by the recent hijacking.
While the United States plays its sinister little game of
supporting Islamic fundamentalists in one country while urging
their execution in another country, for India Islamic-sponsored
separatism is a matter of life and death. Russia, China and
India have already agreed to combat cross-border terrorism
in Central Asia. Russia has also agreed to upgrade India's
air force with enhanced MiG-21 and SU-30 fighter planes. Just
before his election as President of Indonesia, Abdurrahman
Wahid said he looked forward to a possible new alliance
between India, China and Indonesia. Wahid said such an alliance
would help rectify the "lopsided" power of the West.
Malaysia's leader Mohammad
Mahathir talks in this vein almost every day.

Even
the Europeans  our partners in crime over Yugoslavia
 are drawing away from the United States. At the Cologne
summit last June, the European Union resolved to develop an
"autonomous" defense capability. This was enough
to provoke hysteria in Washington. Deputy Secretary of State
Strobe Talbott was beside himself in rage. The last thing
Washington wanted to see, he blustered, was a European defense
identity "which begins within NATO but grows out of NATO
and then away from NATO." The risk, he explained, was
that a European Union defense structure "first duplicates
the alliance and then competes with the alliance." Well
no, the risk is that the Europeans will finally get tired
of being pushed around and bullied into undertaking idiotic
military capers so as to extend America's imperial reach.

The
Untied States won the Cold War and almost immediately blew
it by trying to subordinate the rest of the world. It now
finds itself surrounded by adversarial states and hostile
military alliances. "Neo-conservatives" rejoice.
The more countries that hate you the more right you must be.
A few more years like the last one and we could have a really
nasty war on our hands. That will be a nice way to start the
new millennium!

George
Szamuely was born in Budapest, Hungary, educated in England,
and has worked as an editorial writer for The Times (London),
The Spectator (London), and the Times Literary Supplement
(London). In America, he has been equally busy: as an associate
at the Manhattan Institute, editor at Freedom House, film
critic for Insight, research consultant at the Hudson
Institute, and as a weekly columnist for the New York
Press. Szamuely has contributed to innumerable publications
including Commentary, American Spectator, National Review,
the Wall Street Journal, National Interest, American
Scholar, Orbis, Daily Telegraph, the Times of London,
the Sunday Telegraph, and The New Criterion.
His exclusive column for Antiwar.com appears every Tuesday.

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